


Quack!fic

by caulkhead



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cui bono?, Drunk inna bookshop. Again., Ducks, Gen, I've got a theory, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 21:39:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19732282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caulkhead/pseuds/caulkhead
Summary: The timing never seemed right for the apocalypse. Why would the forces of Hell choose to launch Armageddon when they couldn't even get the roof fixed? And if it wasn't the legions of hell, who else has an interest?Aziraphale has eliminated the impossible, and now he's left with the improbable.





	Quack!fic

_Aziraphale's bookshop, night. He is comfortably settled in an armchair, with a glass of something Scottish and old and probably expensive. It's been a long day, and he is indulging in a little light detective fiction. Golden Age, of course. We zoom in on the page._

V/O, reading from page: 'How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of...'

AZIRAPHALE: Ducks!

_He looks around wildly and reaches for the telephone. Cut to:_

CROWLEY: Yeah, I know, thing water rolls off. I told you that. What're you ringing for at this time of night anyway?

AZIRAPHALE: You've got to listen to me, Crowley. This is important. _It could be ducks._

 _Crowley holds the telephone at some distance from his ear and looks at it suspiciously. It doesn't_ appear _to have turned into a creature from the depths of hell._

CROWLEY: You what?

_Cut. Bookshop interior. Aziraphale is pacing. Crowley is lounging, eyeing up the Scotch. He suspects he is going to need it._

AZIRAPHALE: Once I thought about it, it all made perfect sense. We've never understood why Armageddon was happening now. Your side don't want it, not really. They can't be sure they're going to win. And my side... well, maybe they do. But they didn't start it, so who did? Who benefits? And when I thought about it, I realised I've got a theory.

_Crowley is removing the cork. He's decided not to bother with a glass._

AZIRAPHALE: It could be ducks!

_Crowley splutters whisky over several square feet._

AZIRAPHALE: Think about it. How long have we been feeding them in St James's Park? Two hundred years, give or take?

CROWLEY _(Utterly baffled, but gamely trying to keep up):_ Greedy bastards, with their little webbed feet and all. What do they do with all that bread anyway?

_He takes another swig of the whisky._

AZIRAPHALE: Us, and every set of ambassadors from Murat's aides talking to Wellington's on. The Crimea. South Africa. Germany, twice. Suez... Hot war or cold, there was always someone who needed a reason to meet there. And then, round about the end of the nineties, what happens? The cold war cools off, as it were. You could be public about things. No need for those discreet meetings.

CROWLEY: We kept meeting.

AZIRAPHALE: Yes, yes, but the humans didn't! No more bread! And we can't feed all those ducks on our own. Well, I could, obviously, but I've always worried it would be a bit, well, presumptuous. And, to top it all, well-meaning humans suggested bread wasn't even good for them, and we should feed them defrosted frozen peas instead.

CROWLEY: Urrrgh.

AZIRAPHALE _forges straight on without pausing:_ So, no bread, and less in prospect. And the ducks came up with a plan. You must have noticed all those wars bubbling up recently? International tensions increasing? Goodness knows, I've sent enough memos about it, you'd think someone would have noticed...

CROWLEY: And you think all that was down to... ducks? Trying to make sure they got their, er, daily bread?

AZIRAPHALE: Yes!

_Crowley is going to need another bottle._

AZIRAPHALE: But now we know, we can thwart them!

CROWLEY: What with? Orange sauce?

AZIRAPHALE: Don't be ridiculous. No, what we have to do is get inside their minds. Think like they do. Fundamentally, what does a duck _want?_

_Cut to: A traffic jam, right across the Mall. Somehow, a bread van has overturned. Posh bakery, maybe one of those chichi French ones in Chelsea. Miraculously, everyone is unharmed, though a traffic warden is extremely irritated that it has somehow squashed his ticketing computer in the process. The van, however, has shed its load...._

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to Dorothy L Sayers and Joss Whedon. No ducks were harmed in the making of this fic.


End file.
